Following Jesus is a faith-building adventure. I love to grow and to share my faith in Jesus Christ, but that wasn’t always the case. Although I welcomed Jesus, my Savior, into my life when I was an eleven-year-old boy, it took 30 years of trying everything else until I finally took the plunge and surrendered to Jesus’ love and let Jesus be the Lord of my life. How I thank God for His patience with me and for filling me with His love to praise Him, to serve Him, and to love the people whom He brings into my life. The infinite and perfect love of Jesus is my only source of true peace, security, and significance.
Exercising faith involves daily surrender of control, daily feeding on God’s Word, daily listening to and for God’s voice as God transforms my images, my thoughts, my priorities, and my decisions. Faith muscles must be developed through daily exercises that strengthen my faith.
When I was younger, Steve Green was my favorite Christian artist. These words from Steve’s “I repent” song became etched in my long-term memory. “Although Your love is in me, it doesn’t always win me when competing with my sin. I repent, making no excuses. I repent, no one else to blame. And I return to fall in love with Jesus. I bow down on my knees, and I repent.” You’ll be blessed if you find & listen to this song online.
Confession, repentance, and surrender to God’s love, His truth, and His plans must become part of my daily work-out exercises if my trust in the Lord is to become true, strong, and life-transforming. I won’t have much to offer you if I’m just following another person’s plan or experience with Jesus Christ. My life must be connected and rooted in a personal, growing, and intimate relationship with God and with His Word if I’m going to have any positive, eternal impact on those around me. If I snooze in the morning, then I’ll lose out on having a fresh encounter with Jesus, and nobody wants to eat my spiritual leftovers.
Our bodies are living temples where God’s Spirit resides. When I give more attention to one part of my temple to the neglect of another part, my temple gets weakened. In 3 John 2, Paul wrote, “Dear friends, I am praying that all is well with you and that your body is as healthy as I know your soul is.” I etched these words years ago in the cover of my NLT Bible. Why? Because I have tons of spiritual passion, but I neglect exercising. When I don’t exercise, I get weak, I don’t think well or live well, and I’m prone to getting sick in the winter. Left to ourselves, we tend to self-destruct. We pay attention to and do what feels good to the neglect of what’s missing and needed and doesn’t feel as good to do.
This blog won’t become a get-a-diet/exercise plan for your New Year’s resolution that dissolves by February. Instead, I’m writing to encourage you. In whatever part of your life that needs help, God supplies helpers to develop you. God gave me a godly wife to walk and to talk with every day. Sue feeds me healthy foods that are good for my body. God gave me a power-under-control son, Nick, who is my personal trainer. Nick provides me with daily exercises to strengthen my muscles, to make me more flexible, and to encourage me to pay attention to what I oftentimes ignore. God gave me Camper, my fun-loving puppy, who constantly wants me to get down and play with him, chase him around, and take him for walks. God also filled my life with His kids of all ages who challenge me to get outside of my comfort zone and to create and to do something new. When my friends of all ages challenge to stop putting off what God wants me to do, I know that they love me and want God’s best for me.
All of life is spiritual when we live for Jesus. Paying positive attention to one part of you will benefit all the other parts of you. When you say “yes” to caring for God’s temple, you will be setting into motion daily exercises that feed your mind, your body, and your heart. You will be passing on to others what God is giving you, and before you know it, you will be contributing to the vitality of God’s kids around you. When you say “no” to caring for God’s temple, you will get worn out, get sick, and pass on unhealth to those around you.
Let’s pursue health together this year until our hearts and our parts are being utilized to reflect Jesus, our loving Lord. Let’s tell stories of what Jesus is doing as we journey together and discover all that God has planned for us. Let’s do life together instead of isolating ourselves and waiting for Satan to pick us off. As my dad always says, “It’s better to wear out than rust out.” As we build spiritual health and community together, let’s exercise and stretch our faith and not shrink back from all that God wants us to do. Let’s exercise our faith until it burns as God fans into flames our gifts. Let’s outgrow our old habits that lead to weakness or fatness and replace them with spiritual and physical muscles that support the ministries that Jesus calls us to do with and for Him. Not by might or by power, but by God’s Spirit working in and through us for God’s glory.